Job assignments play a central role in the development of successful leaders. Cynthia McCauley in Developmental Assignments (2006), offers 10 characteristics of assignments that cause learning:
- Unfamiliar responsibilities
- Starting something new or making strategic changes
- Fixing problems created by someone else
- Dealing with employees who lack experience, are incompetent or are resistant to change
- High stakes (tight deadlines, pressure from above, high visibility, responsibility for critical decisions)
- Managing work that is broad in scope or large in size
- Managing the interface with important groups outside the organization
- Influence without authority
- Working across cultures
- Being responsible for the work of people of both genders and different racial and ethnic backgrounds.